The present invention relates generally to the field of electronic mail and messaging, and more particularly to a system and method for broadcasting a message to multiple contacts in a list of contacts provided by an electronic mail application and providing presence information for contacts in the list of contacts provided by the electronic mail application.
Instant messaging (IM) is an important technology for modern business. It has the ability to improve the communications efficiency of an organization; potentially lowering communications costs, reducing cycle times, improving customer retention, and enhancing partner effectiveness. IM allows workers to collaborate with colleagues, partners, and customers. Moreover, it can help to quickly solve business questions, share files, supplement conference calls, and provide other valuable workplace services. Generally, instant messaging utilizes real-time information about users, systems, and device availability, enabling both users and applications to make more informed decisions about information and request routing. For example, by determining a user's location, an IM application can route information to the appropriate computer or device, providing the critical information in a timely fashion.
Instant messaging utilizes an underlying technical capability known as presence. Broadly, presence refers to information about a user's availability. By indicating which users are available online and which users are away (e.g., away from their computer terminals), a presence service provides information for determining who is available to answer a question, complete a task, collaborate, and the like. For instance, knowing that a user is available often allows for an immediate response to a request for information or an urgent task. Visualization of user availability provided by typical IM services is also important, since a variety of users may be qualified to handle a request or task. Typically, visualization of user availability is provided in the form of an icon or visual cue alerting a user to the status of another user (e.g., one icon for representing a user is online and another for representing the user is away).
Many electronic mail applications incorporate some form of instant messaging along with electronic mail functionality, such as the ability to send an instant message to an electronic mail contact. However, these electronic mail applications do not include functionality for broadcasting an instant message to more than one contact. Thus, it is not possible to simultaneously send a common message to several contacts. Instead, in present applications, a user must copy the message and send it to each contact individually. This process is time consuming and can result in errors as the message is copied. Moreover, these electronic mail applications do not integrate contact information with presence information obtained from a distributed presence enabled communication platform. Thus, the applications can only provide IM status, and cannot provide integrated presence information such as telephone or mobile telephone availability, office availability, pager availability, and the like.
Consequently, it would be desirable to provide an electronic mail application with the ability to broadcast a message to multiple contacts in a list of contacts provided by the electronic mail application, and to integrate contact information with presence information from a distributed presence enable communication platform to furnish presence information for contacts within the list of contacts.